For those of you who consider France to be the authority on anything (threesomes being the obvious exception), this news might come as a bit of a downer to you.
According to ESPN, the French Sports Ministry (or as it should be called, the Southwest German Sports Ministry. Way to go, FDR!) recently reconfirmed their ban on mixed martial arts, effectively cancelling any plans we might have to, as Lorenzo Fertitta put it, “eat croissants [and] watch the UFC pretty soon.” But relax, guys, they still have handball!
Despite joining the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation last March, the fight to keep MMA (and specifically, the UFC) out of France has seemingly found additional support in recent years, bringing to question whether Bob Reilly has recently purchased a summer home in Versailles or not. Someone should look into that. In either case, folks like Carole Bretteville, the president of the Women’s Committee for Federation Francaise du Sport d’Entreprise, point specifically to the UFC’s past social faux pas regarding females and the homosexual community as reason enough to deny the organization entry into their country:
France works very hard to promote equality in all aspects of life, especially in sports. I was appalled to find out how UFC was lobbying in France, especially when [told] how UFC has tolerated derogatory statements and attitudes against women. We cannot allow such an organisation to destroy all the work we have done to promote equality through French sports.
For those of you who consider France to be the authority on anything (threesomes being the obvious exception), this news might come as a bit of a downer to you.
According to ESPN, the French Sports Ministry (or as it should be called, the Southwest German Sports Ministry. Way to go, FDR!) recently reconfirmed their ban on mixed martial arts, effectively cancelling any plans we might have to, as Lorenzo Fertitta put it, “eat croissants [and] watch the UFC pretty soon.” But relax, guys, they still have handball!
Despite joining the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation last March, the fight to keep MMA (and specifically, the UFC) out of France has seemingly found additional support in recent years, bringing to question whether Bob Reilly has recently purchased a summer home in Versailles or not. Someone should look into that. In either case, folks like Carole Bretteville, the president of the Women’s Committee for Federation Francaise du Sport d’Entreprise, point specifically to the UFC’s past social faux pas regarding females and the homosexual community as reason enough to deny the organization entry into their country:
France works very hard to promote equality in all aspects of life, especially in sports. I was appalled to find out how UFC was lobbying in France, especially when [told] how UFC has tolerated derogatory statements and attitudes against women. We cannot allow such an organisation to destroy all the work we have done to promote equality through French sports.
(Damn it, Hickey…why can’t you guys be more like Montana?)
The latest political firestorm over MMA is happening right now in South Dakota, as a proposal to create a South Dakota Athletic Commission — which would regulate sports such as boxing, kick-boxing and mixed martial arts, making them safer and more accessible for fighters in the state — was submitted in a State Senate hearing today, amid protests that MMA is a dangerous, violent enterprise, and unfit for the good people of the Mount Rushmore State. You can listen to audio of the hearing right here.
Leading the charge to create the athletic commission is Republican State Senator Mark Johnston, who is currently being cockblocked by Governor Dennis Daugaard. Daugaard had this to say about MMA last month:
“I’m offended that the state would legitimize cage-fighting and the bloody violence that those kinds of spectacles create. I think it’s interesting that we declare that it is a crime for one human being to strike another, and yet the state now proceeds to legitimize, and label a sport, cage-fighting.”
One of Daugaard’s main allies in the anti-MMA crusade is State Representative Steve Hickey (booooooooo!), who has offered an amendment to the proposal that would ban MMA, while still allowing boxing and traditional martial arts. “The conversation on violence in society needs to start somewhere — why not with our most violent entertainment, and that’s mixed martial arts,” Hickey wrote on Saturday. Yep. Let’s start the conversation by banning MMA. It’s not like parenting or our approach to mental health has any influence on this sort of thing. But wait, it gets worse — so much worse:
(Damn it, Hickey…why can’t you guys be more like Montana?)
The latest political firestorm over MMA is happening right now in South Dakota, as a proposal to create a South Dakota Athletic Commission — which would regulate sports such as boxing, kick-boxing and mixed martial arts, making them safer and more accessible for fighters in the state — was submitted in a State Senate hearing today, amid protests that MMA is a dangerous, violent enterprise, and unfit for the good people of the Mount Rushmore State. You can listen to audio of the hearing right here.
Leading the charge to create the athletic commission is Republican State Senator Mark Johnston, who is currently being cockblocked by Governor Dennis Daugaard. Daugaard had this to say about MMA last month:
“I’m offended that the state would legitimize cage-fighting and the bloody violence that those kinds of spectacles create. I think it’s interesting that we declare that it is a crime for one human being to strike another, and yet the state now proceeds to legitimize, and label a sport, cage-fighting.”
One of Daugaard’s main allies in the anti-MMA crusade is State Representative Steve Hickey (booooooooo!), who has offered an amendment to the proposal that would ban MMA, while still allowing boxing and traditional martial arts. “The conversation on violence in society needs to start somewhere — why not with our most violent entertainment, and that’s mixed martial arts,” Hickey wrote on Saturday. Yep. Let’s start the conversation by banning MMA. It’s not like parenting or our approach to mental health has any influence on this sort of thing. But wait, it gets worse — so much worse:
“Decent and civil societies have to draw the line somewhere; with smoking we draw the line after tobacco and before pot*; with ‘adult entertainment’ we draw the line at child porn. With violent combative ‘sports’ I suggest we draw the line at cage fighting. The line should be drawn after boxing, wrestling and legitimate martial arts. They are violent too but the line needs to be drawn somewhere. Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) or ‘cage fighting’ is over that line — in fact, even the martial arts people I talk to tell me they hate cage fighting because it is a smear on legitimate martial arts.**
MMA Cage Fighting is the child porn of sports.*** The psychological community will tell you that desensitization to violence works exactly like desensitization to porn. You know how porn progresses****… a peek at topless isn’t enough, it all has to come off, then a pic is not enough… it goes to video then to virtual***** and then to the devaluation and mistreatment of women, human trafficking and sex crimes against women. Violence works the same way. Boxing wasn’t enough so they took the gloves off, then they allowed kicking, kneeing people in the head, then elbows to the face, then they put a cage around it. The point is to knock the other guy unconscious while pay per view crowds cheer it on. Why not nunchucks? In Rome they’d gather in colosseums and bring out prisoners and entertain themselves by making them fight to the death. That wasn’t enough so they brought out the helpless and the hated and brought in the hungry lions. Crowds cheered…
If we want to attract dirty and bloody money why not legalize prostitution or bring back the gladiators?…Proponents say it’s going on here already so we need to regulate it to make it safe. Meth use is going on here too, should we regulate Meth labs?******…
When people get hurt and die in extreme sports I’ll confess I sometimes have trouble mustering up sympathy and compassion (even as we should comfort their families and guys like me officiate these funerals). At some point we can’t call these things “accidents” as they are more the product of our carefully thought out decisions. I have to bite my tongue because instead of the passages that comfort the grieving I feel like quoting the great philosopher Forrest Gump: Stupid is as stupid does*******…
In a restaurant the other day I heard a lady say about the MMA match on the television… Oh my, when did they take the gloves off? I wanted to say… Madam, they took the gloves off when we weren’t watching.******** Folks, it’s time to start paying attention because we are creating today the world our grandkids will live in tomorrow.
[MY FOOTNOTES BELOW]
* In other words, completely arbitrarily.
** Also, because MMA is making traditional martial arts obsolete, which is hurting their strip-mall dojo businesses. Keep in mind that some people consider this to be a “legitimate martial art.”
*** If you’ve lived on the Internet long enough, you’re probably aware of Godwin’s Law (“As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1″) and its corollary which states that once such a comparison is made, the discussion is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost the debate. I think that invocations of “child porn” — especially in relation to a combat sport that has existed for decades, is popular worldwide, and has resulted in a surprisingly low amount of deaths and serious injuries compared to other contact sports — should be viewed with the same rhetorical disregard as Hitler-comparisons. Hickey’s ghastly hyperbole does nothing except make him look illogical, reactionary, and emotional to a fault. In short, he’s the last kind of person that should be influencing decisions affecting athletes and sports fans. Let’s hope there are enough passionate pro-MMA voices in the state to drown out his half-evolved gurgles.
******** If you put your bifocals back on, you’ll notice that THEY ARE WEARING GLOVES YOU DUMB FUCK. Is it okay if we disregard your argument entirely now?
(BG)
Update: The Senate Commerce and Energy committee voted unanimously to pass Senate Bill 84, which would mandate the creation of a state athletic commission. The bill is now headed to the state’s house of representatives. If it passes the house, the bill would make its final stop at the governor’s desk to be signed into law or vetoed. Keep in mind that Governor Daugaard is not a fan of MMA. We’ll keep you posted.
In what was supposed to be a day of oral arguments pertaining to the State Attorney General’s most recent motion to dismiss, attorney John M. Schwartz — representing the Attorney General’s office — acknowledged unequivocally that the law prohibiting pro MMA did not apply to amateur versions of the sport, and that as per the statute, a pre-approved third-party sanctioning body could oversee MMA events in the state. The admission of the latter prompted the counsel representing Zuffa’s interests to say that if that were truly the case, then there’d be no further need to pursue the lawsuit – which in turn prompted the presiding Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S District Court of the Southern District of New York to push both sides to immediately settle…
Notwithstanding whether a settlement is reached, the door is now open for Zuffa — or any other MMA promotion — to circumvent the ban by utilizing one of the pre-approved sanctioning bodies enumerated in the statute. Those sanctioning bodies include the World Karate Association (since renamed the World Kickboxing Association, a.k.a. the “WKA”), the Professional Karate Association and the U.S. Judo Association, among others…
In what was supposed to be a day of oral arguments pertaining to the State Attorney General’s most recent motion to dismiss, attorney John M. Schwartz — representing the Attorney General’s office — acknowledged unequivocally that the law prohibiting pro MMA did not apply to amateur versions of the sport, and that as per the statute, a pre-approved third-party sanctioning body could oversee MMA events in the state. The admission of the latter prompted the counsel representing Zuffa’s interests to say that if that were truly the case, then there’d be no further need to pursue the lawsuit – which in turn prompted the presiding Judge Kimba Wood of the U.S District Court of the Southern District of New York to push both sides to immediately settle…
Notwithstanding whether a settlement is reached, the door is now open for Zuffa — or any other MMA promotion — to circumvent the ban by utilizing one of the pre-approved sanctioning bodies enumerated in the statute. Those sanctioning bodies include the World Karate Association (since renamed the World Kickboxing Association, a.k.a. the “WKA”), the Professional Karate Association and the U.S. Judo Association, among others…
Under the 1997 law [banning professional MMA in New York] and by the Attorney General’s own admission, sanctioning by a third-party organization is a viable way around the ban. In addition, as long as the law remains on the books, the New York State Athletic Commission has no regulatory authority over MMA and would therefore have no oversight over such events.
“We’ll take it,” said UFC in-house counsel Timothy Bellamy, who was present at today’s proceedings. “We’d rather have the state lift the ban and we go that route first, but we’ll know in the next two months if that’s going to happen.” If it doesn’t, said Bellamy, then the UFC would use the third-party-sanctioning option.
With all of the resistance New York and it’s crooked supporters have put up against the legalization of MMA in the Empire State, it’s surprising that none of these do-gooder groups have ever raised a stink about any really dangerous sports like football, or cheerleading — the latter of which accounts for nearly 67 percent of catastrophic sporting injuries in females.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/katrinaberarducci)
A recent report showed that between 1982 and 2007, there were 103 fatal, disabling or serious injuries and three deaths recorded among female high school athletes, with the vast majority occurring in cheerleading. The study went on to say that 25% of NCAA Insurance program funding went towards cheerleading-related injuries.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/
With all of the resistance New York and it’s crooked supporters have put up against the legalization of MMA in the Empire State, it’s surprising that none of these do-gooder groups have ever raised a stink about any really dangerous sports like football, or cheerleading — the latter of which accounts for nearly 67 percent of catastrophic sporting injuries in females.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/katrinaberarducci)
A recent report showed that between 1982 and 2007, there were 103 fatal, disabling or serious injuries and three deaths recorded among female high school athletes, with the vast majority occurring in cheerleading. The study went on to say that 25% of NCAA Insurance program funding went towards cheerleading-related injuries.
What’s funny is that the sport, which basically has no regulation in terms of what level of expertise coaches and trainers must have (outside of a handful of schools who recently begun checking), nor does it have a set minimum training or experience requirement for its participants, is accepted across North America and has never faced a possible ban like MMA did in New York in 1997.
(Video courtesy of YouTube/TheNCSF)
Most cases for the legalization of MMA have included the staggering statistics of cheerleading-related injuries to point out the hypocrisy of opponents of the sport, who claim that fighting is unsafe because of the number of injuries incurred by its athletes. Such arguments often fail when stat sheets are brought out to demonstrate just how few mixed martial arts bouts end in injury, besides minor ones like finger and hand sprains or dislocations.
You can bet we’ll never see Bob Reilly supporting a bill to ban cheerleading in New York, mostly because it won’t get him the votes of his constituents with ulterior motives or campaign contributions from conflicting parties like the Culinary Union.
This time, the parent company of the UFC and Strikeforce has resorted to a lawsuit filed today in New York U.S. district court against New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. According to The Wall Street Journal, the plaintiffs are seeking a declaration that the ban of MMA in New York violates the First Amendment, which states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The portion of the amendment that Zuffa is focusing on is the “freedom of speech” part, which also covers freedom of expression. Because one of the three words in the term “mixed martial arts” is “arts,” Zuffa lawyers will attempt to argue that the sport is a form of artistic expression, and as such, should not be criminalized in the state.
This time, the parent company of the UFC and Strikeforce has resorted to a lawsuit filed today in New York U.S. district court against New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance Jr. According to The Wall Street Journal, the plaintiffs are seeking a declaration that the ban of MMA in New York violates the First Amendment, which states:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
The portion of the amendment that Zuffa is focusing on is the “freedom of speech” part, which also covers freedom of expression. Because one of the three words in the term “mixed martial arts” is “arts,” Zuffa lawyers will attempt to argue that the sport is a form of artistic expression, and as such, should not be criminalized in the state.
“Live professional MMA is clearly intended and understood as public entertainment and, as such, is expressive activity protected by the First Amendment,” the lawsuit states.“As is true of ballet, music, or theater, for an audience, attending a live MMA event is an experience that cannot be replicated on a screen.”
The suit was co-signed by Jon Jones, Gina Carano, Frankie Edgar, Matt Hamill and Brian Stann, who according to court documents “have suffered, and will continue to suffer, irreparable harm” due to the MMA ban in New York.
The case could set a landmark precedent if judgment sides with the plaintiffs as it will be the first successful First Amendment case involving a professional athlete. The floodgates for similar suits could open if the case is ruled in Zuffa’s favor. By rights, other pros like basketball, baseball and football players could arguably sue their respective leagues during lockouts that such practices prevent them from earning a living and cause “irreparable harm and suffering.”
Barry Friedman, a professor at New York University School of Law who is representing Zuffa and its fighters says that the law doesn’t necessarily need to cover all athletes.
“This is the first time to my knowledge that a professional athlete is claiming a First Amendment right to communicate with fans in a live event,” said Friedman.”The courts needn’t declare all sports protected by the First Amendment, because MMA — which, as the name suggests, draws on a mosaic of different fighting styles — is special. It’s martial artistry,” he said. “The nature of martial arts is a lot like dancing.”
I take it he’s never watched a football or basketball game. Tell Michael Jordan and Jerry Rice that they weren’t as graceful as an MMA fighter when they played. Other than that, the lawsuit looks pretty interesting.
Even though Wisconsin has been regulating MMA competition since early 2010, new legislation is being proposed that would give individual Wisconsin towns the power to outlaw the sport. Introduced on October 6th, 2011 Assembly Bill 308 would authorize more than 1,200 Wisconsin towns to enact and enforce an ordinance prohibiting a person from participating in, operating, maintaining, attending or promoting an amateur or professional MMA fighting contest.
The bill was introduced by State Representatives Pat Strachota (R) and Mark Honadel (R), and co-sponsored by State Senator Glenn Grothman (R), although Honadel has reportedly withdrawn his support.
Even though Wisconsin has been regulating MMA competition since early 2010, new legislation is being proposed that would give individual Wisconsin towns the power to outlaw the sport. Introduced on October 6th, 2011 Assembly Bill 308 would authorize more than 1,200 Wisconsin towns to enact and enforce an ordinance prohibiting a person from participating in, operating, maintaining, attending or promoting an amateur or professional MMA fighting contest.
The bill was introduced by State Representatives Pat Strachota (R) and Mark Honadel (R), and co-sponsored by State Senator Glenn Grothman (R), although Honadel has reportedly withdrawn his support.
That’s right — with unemployment rampant and a $4 billion deficit strangling the budgets for education, health care, infrastructure and other vital functions of government these nozzles are taking time to worry about banning MMA events and preventing hardworking guys like Duke Roufus, Anthony “Showtime” Pettis, Olympian Ben Askren and others from pursuing their sport in their home state. Does this strike anyone else as absurd?
Roufusport head trainer Duke Roufus went on The MMA Show With Mauro Ranallo today and spoke out against the legislation, saying it sets a dangerous political precedent — since the state is supposed to oversee municipalities — and wondered why the same state representatives who green-lit MMA in 2010 are now turning their backs on it.
For more info on AB-308′s history and the current opposition, check out this post on USCombatSports. You can also follow the issue on the Support_WI_MMA Twitter feed, and if you’re a Wisconsin resident, go here for info on how to contact your local legislator and make your voice heard.
Props to Jefferey “KarmaAteMyCat” Watts for the tip!
